I'm sure many of you have bought stuff from them before, and know how good they are. But if you are going to buy a number of things at the same time, it's always worth phoning them up as it's impossible to know how the differing combination of offers and bundles can work out unless they do it for you on the phone. I have just saved myself quite a bit by doing this, without there even being an obvious offer on their site.

Hi Matt, I do get some good results with my 150-450 hand held, but too many suffer from camera shake when on the tripod with shutter set to a 12 second delay and shake reduction off. I am concluding that my tripod is not up to the lens when fully extended. So the purpose of this post is to ask you, and any other members, about which tripod and head you use for best results.

ronniemac wrote:...I do get some good results with my 150-450 hand held, but too many suffer from camera shake when on the tripod with shutter set to a 12 second delay and shake reduction off...All suggestions welcome. thanks.

Ronnie, I don't have a long lens nor do I understand how the tech works, but getting camera shake on the tripod prompts the question - have you tried using the tripod with camera SR switched on?

ronniemac wrote:Hi Matt, I do get some good results with my 150-450 hand held, but too many suffer from camera shake when on the tripod with shutter set to a 12 second delay and shake reduction off. I am concluding that my tripod is not up to the lens when fully extended. So the purpose of this post is to ask you, and any other members, about which tripod and head you use for best results.

All suggestions welcome. thanks.

Just to check that you are mounting the lens on the dedicated mounting bracket? Silly question I know but just in case!

Philip, I didn't think to use shake reduction because it seems to be automatically disabled when using a timed shutter release, but I'll give it a go and see how it turns out - both on and off tripod.

Thanks for the info, Matt, on your Manfrotto carbon and three way head. I think I need to accept that a small and easily portable tripod with an inexpensive ball head is not up to the job. But yes, I was using the fixing the lens to the tripod rather than the camera.

I did some further trial and error and found that I was getting best results using electronic shutter and live view. I also determined that the stability of the floor and weight of traffic outside was a factor (I'm in a holiday rent flat overlooking Gloucester Harbor, MA, photographing schooners!). Frequently better results were achieved hand held, sitting in a comfortable armchair, or pressing down on the camera/lens/tripod arrangement. It seems that a bit of superimposed weight goes a long way to steadying everything.